was born from the desire of a group of graphic artists, silkscreen printers, artists and the unemployed to give life to a project that supports and diffuses fair-trade principles and sustainable consumption, while at the same time creating jobs in our own territory.
Textiles are one of the economic sectors most at risk for worker abuse and human-rights violations, due to the de-localisation of production to countries that do not have the strong laws regulating worker and environmental rights.
Printing our ideas and designs on T-shirts, bags and other textiles that come from the fair-trade movement means not only refusing the logic of maximum profit at minimum cost, a logic that denies human dignity and gives no respect to the rights of the developing world, but also means not entering into contradiction with our ideas and our sense of community. The CRITICAL SHIRTS association is made up of a group of individuals that over the years have earned ample experience in the area of job-training and job-seeking programs oriented towards the socially disadvantaged: inmates, ex-inmates, at-risk minors and women in difficulty. Across training courses and other cultural and socio-educational activities, the association will continue to develop projects that favour encounters between the different realities of the socially disadvantaged and the everyday citizens of Rome, with the objective of reducing the prejudices that create intolerance and marginalisation.
By purchasing a product you help sustain both the reality of a new kind of textile industry, one that in the developing world is seeking to create an alternative to worker abuse, as well as the small local reality of an association that in the developed world, invests in the respect of human rights and human solidarity.
Critical Shirts is active in Rome and is organising to distribute T-shirts across Italy within the commercial circuit of the fair-trade movement.
If you like the idea and would like to be a retailer of our T-shirts, please contact us so that we can discuss the possibility of working together.
If you would like to purchase one or more of our T-shirts, consult the catalogue and contact us via email